Keith Ellison: mr. ellison, you have been absolutely magnificent in helping make that happen. mr. ellison: well, the gentlelady yields back, let me commend you for your leadership. we have sent letter after letter to make sure that the white house knew exactly where we stood. the last letter we sent i think we had 60 signatures but that was not the only letter we sent.

Keith Ellison: we have been letting the white house know, letting democratic leadership know, that a public option was essential to reform and so last night i was very grat feud to -- gratified to from a public option, but to embrace the idea. and i will take credit on behalf of the progressivmovement in

Keith Ellison: saying that i think that we helped inform and shape the position that the president ultimately took. the president made a great line, i think you might agree, congresswoman woolsey, when he said, we don't fear the future, we're here to shape it. well, that is absolutely true for the progressive caucus. under your leaders

Keith Ellison: of congressman grijalva, the progressiv congressional caucus has become coming here week after week but not just coming to the house floor, we've been in the debate, we've been meeting, we've been writing letters,, we've been communication. we, through your advocacy, congresswoman woolsey, and that of congressman >> i hallucinate i have, have

Keith Ellison: been very clear that this -- that we grasp the magnitude of the moment that we're in. that we're not making any mistake about the historic nature of this time and that we are grasping that moment and making sure that we set our country on a path to true care reform. and that starts with a public

Keith Ellison: option, i believe, and i believe yesterday, we can't celebrate because we haven't got the ball over the fence yet, but i'm happy with the fact that we have kept the president on course and i'm very encouraged by what happened yesterday. but before i yield back to you, congresswoman woolsey, i just want to share with you

Keith Ellison: something, i if -- if i may. and that is this big old red box. you see this big box i might need a bunch of these strong pages we have around here to carry it for me. but these box -- but this box represents 63,000 -- people who signed a petion

Keith Ellison: saying that they wanted a public option. ms. woolsey: wow. mr. ellison: this is -- let me just take this out of the box for a moment. this is no joke. this is like a lot of work and this is an enormous document right here. all these people said, hey, look, you know, if we're going to mandate care for 49 million

Keith Ellison: new people then how can we mandate care for them if we're going to mandate that they go do business with a monopoly without any way to have competion introduced so that prices can be pushed down? and so, this huge document, which has signatures from every state in the union,

Keith Ellison: congresswoman woolsey, the first ones up here are alaska. and if i dip in a little further, then there's california. and they're even by congressional district. and then we could even go a little further and we're in here still in california because you guys got a big state over there. ms. woolsey: yeah. we know that.

Keith Ellison: mr. ellison: congressional district . what congressional district -- ms. woolsey: six. mr. ellison: we have a bunch of sixes in here. ms. woolsey: i'm sure you do. mr. ellison: we have sixes for days here. they signed this petition so their names are right here. then we can jump back here to our state, my state of minnesota, which is in here as well.

Keith Ellison: but also massachusetts missouri, new jersey, nevada, new york, oregon, tennessee. this is the voice of many, many americans who understand the time is now. so i just thought i'd mention that in terms of making sure that the public option remains a critical part of the discussion, maintains its status as an